Red Mosquito

wease wrote:

meatwad wrote:Unannounced, sudden trip to Walter Reed Medical Center today, reporters told not to report on his movements. They're selling it as "oh, he's going to be busy in 2020 so he's just starting his annual physical." Something's up...heart attack perhaps?

We can only hope.

wease wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:

wease wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

meatwad wrote:Unannounced, sudden trip to Walter Reed Medical Center today, reporters told not to report on his movements. They're selling it as "oh, he's going to be busy in 2020 so he's just starting his annual physical." Something's up...heart attack perhaps?

*Cocaine-related septum hemorrhage

Donald Jerome Trump does not do drugs

The coke and aderal and Sudafed were just resting in his liver

He’s OBVIOUSLY not on Adderall.

With impeachment, America’s epistemic crisis has arrived

Can the right-wing machine hold the base in an alternate reality long enough to get through the next election

Right now, the right’s messaging machine is sputtering a bit, cycling through defenses — it didn’t happen, Trump’s not competent enough to do it, it was a failed quid pro quo so it doesn’t count, he did it but it’s not impeachable — that contradict one another from day to day.

A circular logic, which has become quite familiar in the impeachment affair, emerges: Anyone who says anything contrary to the tribe marks themselves as an enemy of the tribe (cough *deep state* cough); enemies of the tribe cannot but trusted, so their testimony or evidence can be ignored. Thus, by definition, nothing that questions the tribal narrative can be trusted.

A decades-long effort on the right has resulted in a parallel set of institutions meant to encourage tribal epistemology. They mimic the form of mainstream media, think tanks, and the academy, but without the restraint of transpartisan principles. They are designed to advance the interests of the right, to tell stories and produce facts that support the tribe. That is the ur-goal; the rhetoric and formalisms of critical thinking are retrofit around it.

Talk radio and the birth of Fox News in the 1990s were turning points. They eventually expanded to create an entire, complete-unto-itself conservative information universe. It was capable of cranking out stories and facts (or “facts”) in support of the conservative cause 24 hours a day, steadily shaping the worldview of their white suburban audience around a forever war with The Libs, who are always just on the verge of destroying America.

This is what Republicans need more than anything on impeachment: for the general public to see it as just another round of partisan squabbling, another illustration of how “Washington” is broken. They need to prevent any hint of bipartisan consensus from emerging.

bune wrote:

B wrote:

bune wrote:

That's a cool pin.